Have you ever tried Lucid Dreaming?

Like most people, I rarely remember my dreams. You can train yourself to remember most of them. Even better, you can learn to be perfectly aware while you are dreaming.

Through meditation and morning notes I have been more and more self-conscious. Dreams seem like a natural next place to explore. I have just read Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life by Stephen LaBerge and had my first lucid dream today.

“When we make good use of the dream state, it is almost as if our lives were doubled: instead of a hundred years, we live two hundred.”

The technique is pretty simple. You have to decide to remember your future dream as you fall asleep and focus on your decision. Each time you remember a dream as you wake up, write down as much as you can about it immediately.

Train yourself to understand if you are dreaming or not using “dreamsigns” which are just impossible in real life. You’re in a flying car for example, or you walk on water (yeah, I have always loved flying and flying comes all the time in my dreams), etc. You can also test a light switch for example. Light switches don’t always turn the lights on in dreams. Look at your watch and check the time. Now look again. If you are in a dream it is likely completely different time now, or it does not make sense.

As you become “awake as you dream” you can start acting during the dreams, talking to people or animals you meet and even learn things you would not have discovered when you are awake.

The author talks about many applications of lucid dreaming such as self-healing, a practice of self-confidence you can use when you are awake or better decision making.

Dmitri Mendeleev discovered the way of classifying the elements according to their atomic weights in a dream.

Nightmares are also apparently very interesting and becoming aware of them can help solve deep issues within yourself.

The author adds that “reframing nightmares as opportunities for growth is an important key to learning from your dreams.”

There is some technology around it. The book talks about REM dreamers. A French startup is working hard on saving data from your dreams, adding AI and then acting live on your sleep: Dreem. I have tried their first product but found it too heavy to sleep with, I cannot wait to try their new one.

Do you have any experience with Lucid Dreaming? Do you find it useful? If so, please comment here.

Quick update on my startup Leade.rs

In my previous newsletter I was talking about my focus on finding the first ten customers and I’m grateful many already started working with us.

-SXSW gave Leade.rs the opportunity to organize the featured session Exploring Innovations in AI at SXSW 2018 (we already organized a 1,000 people session on chatbots last year, Inside Bots). Thank you, Todd.

-NTT Everis had me MC their entire customer event and moderate a few sessions. Leade.rs is going to help them find speakers for their 2018 customer conference. Thank you, Sonia and Marc.

-The telco Colt has started using Leade.rs to find speakers for their upcoming internal conference. Thank you, Stephanie.

We are in touch with other large corporations interested in having Leade.rs help them for the content of their events or internal off-sites. We are super motivated to help. Let me know if you have an upcoming event we can help with.

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